Why do malaysians say la

Home Articles Languages in Malaysia - Wha Travel Tips. The national language of Malaysia is Malay, apart from being one of the two official languages. The second official language of Malaysia is English, which is also one of the most commonly spoken languages. The three main Malaysian languages are Malay, Mandarin and Tamil. The diverse Malaysian country is home to a diverse living languages! Officially known as Bahasa Malaysia, Malay is the official language of Malaysia and is spoken by over eighty percent of its population.

There are a variety of ten different dialects of this language spoken throughout the country. Of these various dialects, Bahasa Indonesia, common to the southern Malay Peninsula, is the most important and widely used by all.

Also, not to be forgotten, the national anthem of Malaysia is also written in Malay language. Along with Malay, English is one of the most common languages spoken in Malaysia. It is used widely as a medium of education, communication and government houses.

The examinations held here are all based in British English. To crack business deals at an international level, Malaysians have grown prone to the usage of the most commonly used language in the world. It has also been helpful in establishing useful relations between different cultural groups and has helped render harmony. There has also been a steep rise in English speakers with about fifty percent of the people who are literate in English.

Standard Chinese i. About ninety three percent of Chinese families based in Kuala Lumpur not only speak Mandarin but are also fluent in some of its adapted dialects. Although Mandarin is generally spoken by the Chinese in Malaysia, Hokkien is the most popular dialect used in the country.

A good amount of Indians who occupy the Malaysian population speak Tamil as their native language. How to Manage your Online Holdings. Sales Managers and Sales Contacts. Ordering From Brill. LibLynx for Selected Online Resources. Discovery Services. Online User and Order Help. MARC Records. Titles No Longer Published by Brill.

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Review a Brill Book. Regional varieties of language, often a result of language contact, possess various characteristics, such as borrowed words, and often structures, sounds, and meanings transferred from one or more languages.

The variety of English used in informal contexts in Malaysia known as Malaysian English contains localized features resulting from contact with languages spoken by the local indigenous populations as well as the Chinese and Indian diaspora in this Southeast Asian nation. A prominent feature of Malaysian English is the presence of discourse particles such as lah, meh , and lor that are not found in the standardized form of English and that are often unintelligible to people unfamiliar with them.

Using communication on Facebook by Chinese Malaysian young adults as data representing real-life, informal talk in a computer-mediated environment, this article examines the multiple functions of Malaysian English discourse particles and proposes a framework for interpreting their meanings when used in communication. Ok lah … forgive you lah! An utterance such as this may sound strange to people who are not familiar with the English spoken in Malaysia and its neighbour Singapore, but this is an example of the type of English commonly encountered in informal social interactions among Malaysians.

Malaysian English, a variety of English spoken by Malaysians, contains localized features that differ from the standardized form of English and, therefore, is largely unintelligible to people who are not from this geographic region. Developed as a result of language contact with the local languages spoken by its multi-lingual and multi-ethnic society, consisting of the various indigenous populations and the Chinese and Indian diaspora in the country, 1 Malaysian English has its own localized vocabulary, distinct phonological features, intonation patterns, syntactic structures, and pragmatic features Baskaran a and b; Pillai and Kamaruddin With the exception of interactions in highly formal contexts, Malaysian English, with its set of unique discourse particles such as lah, meh, lor, hor, wei , and leh , is used pervasively in oral conversations at almost all levels of society.

In describing Singaporean English as a close relation to Malaysian English, Leimgruber —1 posits that due to the shared history pertaining to the birth of Malaysia and Singapore, the ethnic composition of Singapore and, hence, the core linguistic knowledge of its people is similar to that of Peninsular Malaysia, its closest neighbour, albeit in different proportions.

The most common languages spoken at home by resident Singaporeans, based on data published from to see Leimgruber , are English, the southern Chinese languages, Malay, and Tamil—languages which are commonly spoken in Malaysia as well. This article focuses on one of the more prominent aspects of Malaysian English, that is, the use of discourse particles adopted from local languages and incorporated into informal conversations in English.

We adopt the view that discourse particles perform pragmatic functions to convey pragmatic meanings, particularly attitudinal meanings brought about by their use in communication. Data for the study were obtained from conversations between Chinese Malaysian young adults on Facebook, as the type of communication among friends and family on this platform is mostly conducted in an informal style.

Our research questions include: What Malaysian English discourse particles are used, and how are they used, in a computer-mediated environment by this group of Malaysians?

Particularly, we are interested in examining the functions of the particles used in communicating attitudinal meanings via a channel of communication that has inherent restrictions on the use of non-verbal cues to express such meanings. Discourse particles, therefore, are useful as linguistic devices that guide speakers and hearers to particular and relevant interpretations of interpersonal meaning in utterances and to manage interactions.

Further, while they may mark semantic relations between segments, they carry little or no semantic meaning themselves Lee , and hence, do not contribute to the truth conditions of an utterance Ler Finally, they are multifunctional as they have different uses and meanings in different contexts.

Based on observations of the existence of similar particles found in the local languages in Malaysia, many Malaysian English discourse particles can be traced to their possible sources, which are mainly the Malay language and Chinese languages such as Mandarin, Hokkien, Teochew, and Cantonese. Particles that originate from the Chinese languages can be easily distinguished as they are spoken in distinctive tones, a characteristic of Chinese languages.

Lee observes that particles carry tones much the same way as Chinese words. As noted by Kwan-Terry , Loke and Low , and Wong , particles uttered in different tones serve different functions, and it is commonly observed that the particles are pronounced in particular tones in a regular manner to convey particular meanings.

Other researchers, for example Gupta , a and Goh , prefer to describe the variation in the pronunciation of the particles as a feature of the intonation contour of the utterance. In the written mode of communication, these particles are used without any indication of tone, and yet are perfectly intelligible to the interlocutors.

The intended meanings of speakers are decoded by hearers based entirely on their shared understanding of the use of language in context, without the benefit of tone. However, as in all human interactions characterized by the use of implicature and inference, meanings perceived by a hearer can only be an approximation of what is intended by the speaker, with the hearer collating and processing information deemed relevant in the communication situation Sperber and Wilson When the tone of the discourse particle is absent from the communication, as is the case in computer-mediated communication, the interlocutors depend on other clues in the pragmatic context to derive at the meanings intended.

The tone of the particle is inferred by the hearer based on the relevance of context. Interlocutors using discourse particles share a common understanding of the pragmatic role played by each of the particles, and use this understanding to search for meanings in utterances that fit their expectations of what is relevant in the communication. As particles are clues to interpersonal meanings that are tacitly conveyed in interactions, a fair amount of inference is required to understand and make explicit these meanings.

It is not possible, for example, to obtain an objective explanation on the function of a discourse particle from someone by asking him or her about this in an interview—for the use of particles in communication, as is the case with most language use in interaction, is carried out rather unconsciously.

Studies on Malaysian English discourse particles 7 are few compared to those conducted on Singaporean English. Most of the work done on Malaysian English particles has focused on particles attributed to influence from the Chinese languages. Exceptions are the particle lah , whose origin is uncertain; kan , which is derived from Malay; and bah , which has been postulated to have originated from Mandarin or the Borneo languages see Hassan et al.

The influence of non-Chinese languages such as Malay and Tamil on the lexicon, phonology, and grammar of Malaysian English is well-documented and has been extensively described; however, their influence on the specific word class identified as the discourse particle is still relatively unknown.

These particles are said to have originated from Malay, Chinese, and the local Sabahan languages, and they carry out specific functions to convey emotive attitudes. Kuang —with her description of the functions of the three particles lah, ah , and hah , based on observed informal conversations in different settings—further adds to existing knowledge about how Malaysians use the particles.

She concludes that discourse particles play an important role as useful resources that enable speakers to convey their intentions in different ways, such as to get their messages across without appearing too direct, intimidating, or aggressive. In her research on Singaporean English, Gupta identifies eleven particles — ma, what, meh, geh, leh, na, la, lo, ho, ha , and a —from an analysis of data comprising 18 hours of recorded casual conversations of two Singapore Chinese families. The children in these families speak Singaporean English as their first language, but have been exposed to Hokkien, Teochew, Mandarin, and Cantonese as well.

Based on her research, Gupta concludes that particles can be placed on an assertiveness scale ranging from contradictory and assertive, to tentative, which indicates their broad functions see Figure 1. Ma and what are said to convey contradiction; meh, geh, leh, na, la , and lo express assertiveness, whereas ho, ha , and a convey tentativeness.

In a later work, Gupta b expands on her analysis by proposing that the discourse particles can in fact be viewed as devices that signal epistemic modality. Other notable Singaporean English researchers who have studied the discourse particle are Low and Brown , whose description of the functions of the eight most common particles they have identified in Singaporean English ah, eh, hor, lah , lor, ma, meh , and what has been insightful.

In addition, Ler argues that each particle may be assigned a core meaning, although it may project several different but related meanings when used in different contexts.

In proposing the Wierzbickan approach known as the NSM approach to the study of meaning see Besemeres and Wierzbicka and Wong for its application in the analysis of Singaporean English discourse particles , he claims that the problem of particles appearing to have overlapping functions when analysed from a functionalist perspective would be resolved if the inherent meaning of the particles were to be explicated first.

Attempts to define the functions of discourse particles have generally advanced in two ways. The first, and the more widely attempted, was to try to provide as narrowly as possible, highly differentiated descriptions for individual particles.

The second, and less frequently attempted way to define particles, would be to categorize specific particles into types, based on broad categories of functions. These two approaches to analysing discourse particles, however, are by no means mutually exclusive. It is common for researchers to deal with the specific meanings of particles in various contexts before arriving at an attempt to provide an overview or abstraction of meanings attributed to the particles.

As this study sets out to describe attitudinal meanings that speakers convey when using particles in communicative acts, a functional orientation to the analysis is adopted. It is pointed out that identifying and labelling functions or pragmatic meanings is not a straightforward project.

The same particles used in similar contexts may have their functions labelled differently by different researchers. The data for analysis are comprised of a total of Facebook conversations involving unique interlocutors unique screen identities. The interlocutors in the conversations consisted of the profile owners and their commenters. The 20 subjects selected live in urban and suburban localities, are computer literate, and speak English fluently.

Selection of the conversations was purposive, guided by these criteria:. Past descriptions of the functions of discourse particles in the Malaysian and Singaporean contexts were used as a guide to inform data analysis, but not as a fixed template into which the data were made to fit.

Analysis of the data was primarily inductive, and allowed for comparison between earlier and later formulations and ongoing fine-tuning of interpretations as the analysis progressed.

For any analysis of language and discourse, it is advantageous for the analyst to understand the language that is being analysed. Being a member of the speech community facilitates analysis, as the analyst would be able to discern the nuances in the meanings of language where non-members might not. Attempting to describe functions of discourse particles which are essentially non-lexical words that derive their meanings from their host utterance and pragmatic context is a slippery task, as such meanings often operate at the subconscious level and require a deliberate effort to uncover.

All four authors of this article are members of the speech community of Malaysian English speakers and are therefore familiar with the use of Malaysian English discourse particles. Even when using previously available descriptions of discourse particle functions as a guide, the authors have had to rely to a large extent on their intuition as speakers of the language to interpret the pragmatic context and derive the functions arising from the data.

However, there are several principles that the authors formulated along the way and found helpful for analysis. The analysis of the data for the study depended to a large extent on inductive examination guided by these principles. For example, the particle mah could be used both as an attitude marker as well as a syntactic marker. In the utterance You like laksa mah? When the word mah is removed, the sentence becomes a statement: You like laksa. As mah is believed to be derived from Mandarin, Chinese speakers sometimes use it to construct questions in the same way as it is used in Mandarin.

The particle allows the speaker to justify their earlier action by pointing out a previously shared assumption, that is, both the speaker and the hearer agree that the hearer likes laksa. To our knowledge, the particle mah is the only particle that could be used as a neutral question marker in Malaysian English.

By comparison, the particle ah is attached to questions such as You like laksa ah? While still discussing grammatical functions, elements whose sole function in an utterance is to indicate possession, are also omitted—for example, de, one , and geh. Hence, de, one , and geh are omitted from the analysis when they function as possessive markers. Second, certain particles are used in direct translations of a language and do not imbue the utterance with additional attitudinal meanings.

You leh? What about you? Third, only the particles that occupy the utterance-final slot are included in the analysis. This is because linguists have expressed doubts about whether utterance-initial particles play similar roles to utterance-final ones, as they occupy different grammatical slots.

The particle found in the utterance-initial position in the data, namely eh for instance, eh I thought Sim is going with us , has been excluded. Another difficulty encountered in describing the meanings of discourse particles is the conflation of meanings from both the host utterance and the particle itself. Meanings are contributed both by the discourse particle as well as the utterance to which it is attached. For example, in the utterance Buy this lah , the meanings of the utterance with and without the particle are different.

Without the particle, the host utterance Buy this may be interpreted as a directive, a speech act that reflects a highly assertive tone. With the addition of the particle lah , the utterance is modified into a polite request or a friendly encouragement to someone to buy a certain object.

But to speakers of Malaysian English, the utterance expressing sympathy clearly differs depending on whether it is spoken with or without the particle lo. Using this heuristic, the meaning contributed by the particle would be the attitudinal difference between the resulting meanings of the utterance with and without the particle. Twenty discourse particles were found in the data, appearing in total 1, times Appendix, see Table 1 in the conversations with interlocutors.

In comparison, Ler found only ten particles in the Singaporean data, which is the spoken part of the ICE - SIN corpus comprising , words, while Gupta found eleven particles.

If these ten or eleven particles were to be accepted as the full set of particles in Singaporean English, this would mean that the sociolinguistic environments of Malaysia and Singapore differ significantly, as clearly various other particles from the local linguistic stock have found their way into Malaysian English.

With published work by Muniandy et al. This is probably because kan is derived from the Malay language and therefore its influence on Chinese Malaysian speakers is less apparent. While Ler found nah to be more frequent than leh, mah , and meh , it is quite clear the particle nah is not a favourite among the Malaysian speakers in the study.

Out of the 20 particles found in the data, ten lah, lor, leh, ma, ah, meh, what, hor, ya and nah have been described extensively in previous studies. Although several of these particles— wei Shamsudin , one Muniandy et al. The appearance of these under-researched particles in the Malaysian data shows that Malaysian English has decidedly more varied particles than is evidenced by the body of previous work on the subject. I am by no way embarrassed of Manglish, in fact I am proud of it and I think it is beautiful language with so many cultural influences.

I realised the major difference between the way I speak to an ang mo and to Malaysians recently when I tried to borrow a pen from my fgroup member. I realised Manglish has a more simplified grammar and has added words at the end of the sentences that sometimes has no meaning and sometimes, completely sets the nature and tone of the sentence.

It is almost impossible to list out all the difference between Manglish and British English, it is so complex that I myself cannot really give a summary of it — you know it is complex when an ang mo will have absolutely no idea malaysians are speaking english if they overheard us speaking among ourselves. One of my USMC lecturer will occasionally try to awkwardly end a sentence with -lah to sound more Malaysian.

It is not easy to state the main grammatical differences in a logical manner as I have only spoken and not properly learnt Manglish. Obviously there are a lot of words borrowed from other languages that I will not like to touch upon. To name a few: paiseh Hokkien , dabao Cantonese , tahan Malay , Cincai and etc.

Also Manglish is similar but different to Singlish Singapore English.